Effectiveness of screening protocols and triaging on prevalence of covid infection among hcw in a mixed covid hospital

The COVID-19 pandemic has put the health care worker at increased risk of getting infected by way of exposure to patients in a hospital. Some are at higher risk including those caring COVID 19 patients, and those exposed to suspected, and undiagnosed COVID patients entering the hospital. We did a pilot study in our tertiary care hospital to study the prevalence of COVID 19 infection in HCW in our hospital by conducting COVID 19 antibody tests among 149 HCW at highest risk by nature of their work areas and found very low prevalence of recent COVID 19 infection in them, including zero rates among intensivists doctors working in COVID ICU. We hypothesize that the reasons for our results are strict protocol for screening of patients and HCW entering the hospital, and well implemented SOP and protocols for PPE, infection control, distancing and continuous education to update guidelines.